Job Description

Principal Systems Engineer – Wintel Services

Position Description:

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Systems Engineer – Wintel & Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure to join our Infrastructure Reliability Engineering team. This role is intended for a senior technical leader with deep hands-on expertise in enterprise Microsoft infrastructure, hybrid cloud platforms, virtualization, automation, security hardening, and managed services operations.

The ideal candidate will possess 12+ years of progressive hands-on experience designing, administering, optimizing, and modernizing large-scale Windows Server, Active Directory, VMware, Microsoft Azure, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, backup, monitoring, and enterprise infrastructure platforms. The individual will serve as a principal technical authority, lead complex escalations, define standards and reference architectures, guide modernization initiatives, mentor engineering teams, and ensure the reliability, security, scalability, and performance of business-critical systems supporting higher education institutions.

This role requires a strong blend of architecture-level thinking, operational excellence, technical leadership, automation mindset, executive/customer-facing communication, and the ability to influence standards across Managed Services and enterprise IT environments.

• Improved reliability, availability, and performance of customer Wintel, hybrid cloud, virtualization, and identity platforms.
• Reduced recurring incidents through structured problem management, proactive health checks, remediation planning, and automation.
• Stronger technical governance through documented standards, reference architectures, SOPs, runbooks, and reusable engineering practices.
• Successful delivery of infrastructure modernization, migration, patching, backup, disaster recovery, and cloud enablement initiatives.
• Higher technical maturity across engineering teams through mentoring, design reviews, technical enablement, and escalation coaching.
• Enhanced customer confidence through clear communication, strong ownership, timely escalation handling, and measurable service improvements.

• Improvement in infrastructure availability, service stability, and SLA adherence across assigned customer environments.
• Reduction in repeat incidents, aged problems, and unresolved complex escalations through effective root cause analysis and corrective action planning.
• Timely completion of patching, upgrade, migration, backup validation, disaster recovery, and infrastructure modernization milestones.
• Quality and completeness of architecture documentation, SOPs, runbooks, health assessment reports, and technical knowledge articles.
• Measurable reduction in manual operational effort through automation, scripting, standardization, and process improvement.
• Positive stakeholder feedback from customers, service delivery leaders, engineering teams, and operational leadership.
• Demonstrated contribution to team capability building through mentoring, technical reviews, knowledge sharing, and escalation support.

• Serve as the principal technical authority for Wintel, hybrid cloud, identity, virtualization, backup, and enterprise infrastructure services.
• Define reference architectures, engineering standards, operating models, and reusable implementation patterns for customer environments.
• Lead complex infrastructure transformation, modernization, migration, and remediation programs across multiple customer environments.
• Act as the highest technical escalation point for critical incidents, complex problem management, and long-running infrastructure issues.
• Mentor senior engineers, review solution designs, and provide technical governance across delivery, operations, cloud, security, and service management teams.

• Manage enterprise Windows Server environments (2016, 2019, 2022 and above).
• Administer Active Directory Forests and Domains.
• Manage Group Policy Objects (GPOs), DNS, DHCP, DFS, NTP, File Services, Print Services, and Certificate Services.
• Troubleshoot authentication, replication, Kerberos, AD Sites and Services, and domain trust issues.
• Perform server provisioning, patch management, OS hardening, upgrades, and lifecycle management.
• Ensure platform stability, performance optimization, and compliance with security standards.

• Administer Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) environments.
• Manage Azure AD Connect and hybrid identity synchronization.
• Configure and support Conditional Access, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Identity Governance, Access Reviews, and Privileged Identity Management (PIM).
• Support Microsoft 365 services including Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Intune.
• Manage user identity lifecycle, SSO integrations, and enterprise access controls.
• Assist with Microsoft cloud migrations and modernization initiatives.

• Deploy, manage, and optimize Azure infrastructure services.
• Administer Azure Virtual Machines, Virtual Networks, NSGs, Load Balancers, Storage Accounts, Recovery Services Vaults, and Azure Backup.
• Implement Azure governance, RBAC, security controls, monitoring, and compliance standards.
• Manage Azure resource optimization and cost management initiatives.
• Support disaster recovery and business continuity strategies leveraging Azure-native services.

• Administer VMware vSphere, ESXi, vCenter Server, and associated virtualization platforms.
• Perform VM provisioning, cluster administration, HA/DRS configuration, and capacity planning.
• Manage storage integration, virtual networking, and host lifecycle management.
• Execute VMware upgrades, patching, migrations, and infrastructure health assessments.
• Support hybrid cloud integration between VMware and Azure environments.
• Perform performance tuning and infrastructure optimization.

• Manage enterprise backup and recovery solutions.
• Administer backup platforms such as Veeam, CommVault, Veritas NetBackup, Rubrik, Cohesity, or similar technologies.
• Design and execute backup validation and disaster recovery testing.
• Ensure compliance with recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO).
• Develop and maintain business continuity documentation and procedures.
• Support cyber recovery and ransomware resilience initiatives.

• Develop PowerShell scripts for automation, reporting, monitoring, and administration.
• Automate routine operational tasks and infrastructure provisioning activities.
• Support Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration management initiatives.
• Drive continuous service improvement through automation and operational efficiencies.
• Develop reusable technical standards, templates, and deployment methodologies.

• Act as L3/L4 escalation point for critical production incidents.
• Conduct root cause analysis (RCA) and corrective action planning.
• Participate in major incident management and problem management activities.
• Support change management processes and infrastructure governance.
• Maintain operational documentation, SOPs, architecture diagrams, and knowledge articles.
• Mentor junior engineers and provide technical leadership across support teams.
• 
  

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
• Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
• Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate
• ITIL Foundation Certification
• Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE)
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) (Preferred)
• Azure Security Engineer Associate

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related discipline.
• Minimum 12+ years of progressive experience in enterprise Wintel, hybrid infrastructure, and Microsoft platform engineering.
• Minimum 6+ years of hands-on experience managing Microsoft Azure, hybrid identity, and cloud-connected infrastructure environments.
• Minimum 6+ years of VMware administration, virtualization engineering, capacity management, and enterprise platform optimization experience.
• Strong enterprise experience with Active Directory, Entra ID, and Microsoft 365.
• Experience supporting large-scale enterprise or managed services environments.
• Experience working with hybrid cloud infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of enterprise backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical design discussions, influence engineering standards, mentor teams, and communicate effectively with customer stakeholders and internal leadership.

• Experience supporting Higher Education institutions.
• Experience working within Managed Service Providers (MSP) environments.
• Experience managing geographically distributed infrastructure.
• Experience supporting 24x7 mission-critical environments.

• Windows Server Administration: Windows Server 2016/2019/2022/2025, server roles/features, OS lifecycle, clustering, performance tuning, and enterprise troubleshooting.
• Active Directory Services: multi-domain/multi-forest AD, GPO, DNS, DHCP, DFS, AD Sites and Services, trusts, replication, Kerberos, LDAP, ADFS, NTP, PKI, Certificate Services, and File/Print Services.
• Hybrid Identity & Access: Microsoft Entra ID, Azure AD Connect, SSO, MFA, Conditional Access, PIM, Access Reviews, Identity Governance, RBAC, privileged access, and identity lifecycle management.
• Microsoft Azure Infrastructure: Azure IaaS, VMs, VNets, NSGs, VPN Gateway, ExpressRoute exposure, Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway exposure, Storage Accounts, Azure Backup, Recovery Services Vault, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Azure Policy, Azure Arc, and cost optimization.
• Microsoft 365 Administration: Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, licensing, service health, tenant administration, and integration with identity and endpoint services.
• Endpoint & Configuration Management: Microsoft Intune, Endpoint Configuration Manager/SCCM, Autopilot, Windows Update for Business, OS deployment, patching, compliance policies, and endpoint lifecycle management.
• Virtualization Platforms: VMware vSphere, ESXi, vCenter, HA, DRS, clusters, templates, snapshots, vMotion, VM provisioning, host lifecycle management, storage integration, and Hyper-V exposure.
• Backup, Recovery & Resilience: Veeam, Commvault, Veritas NetBackup, Rubrik, Cohesity, Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, DR testing, backup validation, cyber recovery, ransomware resilience, RPO/RTO planning, and BCP documentation.
• Automation & Infrastructure-as-Code: advanced PowerShell, PowerCLI, Ansible, Terraform, ARM/Bicep exposure, Python/Bash exposure, Git-based version control, runbook automation, and reusable deployment templates.
• Enterprise Monitoring & Observability: Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, SolarWinds, Zabbix, PRTG, LogicMonitor, SCOM exposure, alert tuning, capacity dashboards, infrastructure health checks, and operational reporting.
• Security Hardening & Compliance: CIS benchmarks, Microsoft Security Baselines, vulnerability remediation, patch compliance, Defender for Cloud/Endpoint exposure, audit readiness, least privilege, privileged access controls, and secure configuration standards.
• Enterprise Storage & Compute: SAN/NAS concepts, iSCSI, Fibre Channel exposure, storage provisioning, Pure Storage/NetApp/Dell/HP exposure, RAID, capacity planning, firmware lifecycle, and hardware vendor coordination.
• Enterprise Networking for Infrastructure: TCP/IP, VLANs, routing concepts, firewalls, VPN, load balancers, proxy concepts, certificates, ports/protocols, name resolution, and infrastructure network troubleshooting.
• ITSM & Managed Services Tooling: ServiceNow, ConnectWise/Freshservice exposure, incident, major incident, problem, change, request, CMDB, asset lifecycle, SLA tracking, and knowledge management.
• Hybrid Cloud Architecture: on-premises to Azure integration, landing zone awareness, migration planning, modernization roadmaps, operational governance, documentation, and cross-functional design collaboration.

• Advanced Troubleshooting
• Root Cause Analysis
• Technical Documentation
• Customer Communication
• Stakeholder Management
• Problem Solving
• Analytical Thinking
• Team Collaboration
• Mentoring & Coaching
• Change Management
• Incident Management
• Time Management
• Service Excellence

• Design, implement, and support enterprise Microsoft infrastructure solutions.
• Manage hybrid environments spanning on-premises and cloud platforms.
• Ensure infrastructure security, availability, scalability, and performance.
• Lead technical troubleshooting and escalation management activities.
• Implement automation initiatives to increase operational efficiency.
• Support audit, compliance, and security initiatives.
• Develop and maintain operational and architectural documentation.
• Participate in infrastructure transformation and modernization projects.
• Collaborate with cloud, security, networking, service desk, and application teams.
• Ensure adherence to ITIL processes and operational best practices.
• Deliver excellent customer experience through proactive service management.

• Higher Education IT environments
• Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)
• Intune & Endpoint Management
• Microsoft Defender Suite
• Azure Landing Zones
• VMware NSX
• VMware Horizon
• Azure Site Recovery
• Enterprise Storage Platforms
• Infrastructure Monitoring Tools (Zabbix, LogicMonitor, SolarWinds, PRTG)
• Ansible or Terraform
• SQL Server Administration
• AI-Enabled IT Operations (AIOps)
• Cyber Recovery & Ransomware Protection
• Infrastructure Modernization & Cloud Migration Projects